With the development of a data center and a virtualization technology, reliability of a data network generally depends on a network interface card bonding technology. Network interface card bonding requires a user to understand a network architecture of physical server connections, so that a networking scheme meeting reliability of a data center can be designed. This imposes higher requirements on skills of system maintenance personnel, increases server maintenance difficulty, and increases system maintenance costs. To resolve such a problem, management software of a server is used for management. By using the management software, the user no longer needs to consider network networking reliability, but leaves the network networking reliability to the management software for implementation. This greatly reduces maintenance operation complexity for the user, and reduces service incidents (such as a broadcast storm or a service interruption) resulting from user mis-operations or incorrect network configuration. Simplification of the server use for the user actually means enhanced functions of a network interface card and the management software. Consequently, configuration and management of the management software and the network interface card become more complex.
Regardless of a converged network interface card or a next-generation multi-function network interface card, there is more configuration and management communication between the management software or a user and a network interface card (firmware upgrading, physical function configuration, reliability configuration, virtual machine QoS configuration, VLAN configuration, and the like). Configurability and manageability of the network interface card become an important function of a new-generation server.
Stateless computing becomes a necessary feature of an existing server, so as to implement plug-and-play of server hardware. Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIE) devices such as a network interface card, a converged network adapter (CNA), a redundant array of independent disks (RAID) card, a solid state disk (SSD) card, and a graphics processing unit (GPU) card need to implement a function of hardware replacement with no configuration lost. The configuration mostly exists in a profile form in the management software of the server. When hardware is replaced or new hardware is added, a system management module (SMM) delivers configuration information of all peripheral devices, so as to implement plug-and-play.
In the prior art, the SMM is connected to a server device over a network, and configures and manages a device such as the CNA/RAID/SSD in two manners.
A configuration proxy module is installed on a server system, and the SMM communicates with the configuration proxy module to implement configuration for the device such as the CNA/RAID/SSD.
When the server needs to configure the peripheral device such as the CNA/RAID/SSD, the server loads a simple operating system from the SMM module, starts it, and then starts a service system locally from the server after the configuration is complete.
The manner in which a configuration proxy tool is installed on an OS of the computer device depends on a type and a version of the OS that are selected by a user. As a result, deployment of an upgrade tool is inconvenient and uncontrollable, a firmware version cannot be checked, and a development workload is heavy as a firmware upgrade tool is strongly associated with the type of the OS system. The simple operating system increases a system startup time. In addition, the SMM needs to connect to a server host system by using a network, which increases hardware costs. Management and service are coupled by using a service channel, which is unfavorable for maintenance and isolation.